Comic books are in. Not just in the movie sphere, but in the television world as well. Between Marvel and DC alone there are roughly seven shows on air that spawned from comic books. DC itself currently has three shows on the air, with two more on the way (possibly more if things like Teen Titans get greenlit). So it’s natural that with so many properties being adapted that one of them would fall short of the mark. The problem with Gotham, is that it doesn’t even seem to be trying.

Now, traditional essay writing suggests that I should present you with a thesis. So in honor of that, my thesis is as such: Gotham is aimless. It’s lacking a sense of purpose and because of it, the show has no idea what it wants to be. If the show continues on like this, it will crash and burn and become something of a regretful notch in the history of comic book television.

Life is Strange is an episodic adventure game developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square Enix. The star of Life is Strange is Max Caulfield, a lonely and awkward college student. It just so happens she can also rewind time. Though Life is Strange doesn't hit you over the head with the sci-fi aspect of its story, it definitely allows for a unique gameplay experience.

Like all current episodic games, you make choices that will affect your story in later episodes. The choices here could range from large, in your face choices, to small and entirely passable choices. You might not even know that they're there. When the game finished you're shown a list of all the choices that could be made and the path you took. Within there were plenty of tiny choices I had missed entirely. So the game definitely rewards complete exploration, but I'm interested to see how the story turns out considering I didn't discover some of them.

Because you can rewind time, if you aren't happy with the way your choice panned out immediately, you can rewind back before you made it and try again. That said, the consequences of your actions might not be readily apparent. During the game Max will provide her thoughts through voice over about the choices and interactions. But no matter what you do, Max's thoughts on the choice you make will be of regret and guilt. The game does its best to make sure you know there's no such thing as the "right choice". It's an interesting way to take things, one I'm curious to see continue throughout the remaining four episodes.

The writing in Life is Strange varies from sincerely authentic to god awful indie film and everything in between. You'll never know the quality of the line you'll receive, but thankfully the voice acting does its best to carry the writing. It doesn't always work, but it doesn't hamper things all that much. You may notice that the lip syncing is literally nonexistent, but it isn't super distracting.

The look of Life is Strange perfectly suits the tone it's going for. The game is very much an indie production in both spirit and practice. The game's story follows your traditional indie plot line, but comes at it from various angles that are usually unexplored in that genre. There's also the sci-fi concept on the side that injects some originality into the setting.

The game last about three hours in total, but Life is Strange is more than worth playing. It conveys an earnestness that's rare to see in games nowadays. The story might seem cliche at times and the dialogue cringe worthy, but it's exploring areas that games just don't want to cover. If you want to see something unique in the realm of gaming, Life is Strange is definitely for you.

If you haven’t heard by now, Fox Studios released the first trailer for their new Fantastic Four movie. If you don’t remember (and who could blame you), Fox had put out two previous films nearly ten years ago. They were both awful. So naturally when it came time to re-up the rights to the characters, people begged Fox to give them back to Marvel so they could make something good – or at the very least decent – out of it. But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Fox traded Daredevil for an extension of the FF rights and here we are today.

But that’s not exactly the whole story. There’s been a lot of talk about this movie. Most of it has been about the production of the film. There were casting issues, script issues, and reshoots… so many reshoots. From what it sounded like, this movie got taken apart and put back together at least twice. If anyone recalls Superman Returns, you know that never works out well. So I’m being kind when I say that the expectations of this movie are beyond low. And that’s not just from racist fanboys who can’t stand the fact that Johnny Storm is black. Every word on this movie has been a cautionary one.

Yet here we are today, with the trailer’s release, and I find myself conflicted. First off, it’s a very well done trailer. It reminds me somewhat of Interstellar, talking about the advancements of humanity and what science can do for us as a species. It’s shot very well, which I expect from Josh Trank, who directed Chronicle. It show cases each other characters except our main villain (Toby Kebbell playing Doctor Doom) and some other sprawling shots with a VO from Reg E. Cathey from House of Cards (He’s playing Johnny Storm’s father). The most starling fact is the lack of showcase for the powers. Except for a brief shot of the Human Torch and two small shots of The Thing, you’d have no idea this was a superhero movie from the scenes alone.

It’s an interesting avenue to take. I wonder if Fox – or Trank – thought the seriousness of the trailer wouldn’t make sense in a superpowered montage. I tend to agree, but then I have to wonder what kind of tone they’re going for. Is this some kind of ruse? I imagine we’ll have to wait until the second trailer, or reports from press events, to see if the tone holds. If it does, we may have something interesting on our hands. If not… then we go back to praying the rights return to Marvel someday.

No one wants a bad movie. But the Fantastic Four has a terrible history and the production of this one isn’t much better. The cast is young, but hopefully not too young (IMDB). Unfortunately Mr. Fantastic is the only character with any kind of dialogue, so it’s hard to get a grasp on the kind of characters we’re seeing.

I suppose all we can do is cross our fingers and hope for the best. We’ve only got another seven months to see for sure.

I'm not really one for resolutions. They're just funny things that people say because they wish they would actually accomplish them. Instead I'm just going to set a few goals for the year, most to do with entertainment. My hope is that they'll expand my horizons a bit.

I want to watch at least 50 new movies this year.

I want to finish at least 30 new books.

I want to finish at least 20 new games.

These various things can be of any size, but I'll be keeping track of what I'm watching, reading, and playing. Then I'll do a recap at the end of the year of everything I watched/read/played.